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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Dumpster Diving (Almost)

Isn't it great when God gives us obvious opportunities to serve others? Yesterday I had one of these.

On Monday night we had a Boy Scout awards program at our church building. Yesterday morning (Tuesday) I received a telephone call from a distraught mother of a scout. She had lost her camera's SD memory card. It contained 1,500 photos that had not been backed up anywhere. This mom thought that maybe she had left the memory card at the church and that it had ended up being thrown away into the dumpster.

Yuck.

I quickly figured out that some dumpster diving was probably in order (that's not me in the above photo, but I feared I was facing something like it). I quickly drove to the church building to rescue the trash from the dumpster before the trash truck could come and take it all away. I was very pleased that I only had to reach into the dumpster. No diving was required. Whew.

One reason that I wanted to help this lady is that she is not a Christian but seems fairly open to the gospel. My hope is that by helping her in this way, she will be more open to talking about Jesus later.

After carting about five gross trash bags into the church's fellowship hall, five or six of us picked through the trash together (a family from the church came to help us - kids and all). Looking for an SD card in trash bags full of discarded food is something like looking for a needle in a haystack. We were actually hoping we wouldn't find it because if we had, it would most likely have been ruined by various disgusting liquids.

As we were going through the bags and the smells were permeating my clothing, I was reminded that service is rarely easy. It is often dirty and tiring. However, it is always rewarding.

In the end we didn't find the memory card. We are all hoping she finds it in her house or car (her other guesses). This mom was very thankful to us for the help. I think she saw, whether she realized it or not, the love of Christ in action. We are hoping for future opportunities to share the good news of Christ with her and her family.

The Lord is good to give us opportunities to serve. I need to keep my eyes more open for them.